Review: MacBook Air (M1)
Price: £999 from fave.co/3h8sDrP
When Apple said it would start producing Macs with its own system-on-chip processors, custom CPU and GPU silicon (and a bunch of other stuff) to replace parts from Intel and AMD, we figured it would be good. I never expected it would be this good. Looking at the incredible performance of Apple’s A-series SoCs for iPhones and iPads, one could extrapolate to a laptop chip that offers really good efficiency and performance. To say that Apple delivered would be the understatement of the year.
The MacBook Air with the new M1 processor so absolutely and thoroughly trounces the Intel version released earlier this year (with Intel’s ‘Ice Lake’ Y-series CPU/ GPU) that it defies belief.
Unfortunately, Apple changed practically nothing else about the MacBook Air. This new model is exclusively a processor swap. But what a processor.
IT’S WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE THE COUNTS
From the outside, you can’t tell the Intel-based MacBook Air from the one with Apple’s new M1 chip. It’s in the same enclosure, weighs the same, has the exact same excellent Magic Keyboard and still the best trackpad in the business.
The 2,560x1,600 display supports P3 wide colour and True Tone and gets as bright as 400 nits, just as the one on MacBook Air released earlier this year. It has the same 44.9 watt-hour battery (though it lasts a lot longer).
The webcam is even still the same age-old 720p webcam that has plagued Apple’s laptops for years.
The superior image processing afforded by the M1 chip really does a fantastic job of improving exposure, contrast and noise in poor light, but it’s still blindingly obvious that Apple
